


becoming stanley

by polkadot



Series: la vache et le dauphin [2]
Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three questions about relationships that Stan deflects, and one that he answers without being asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	becoming stanley

**Author's Note:**

> So this started out as "why Stan didn't use to like cuddling but now he does", and then had to get completely rewritten. It also would have been up earlier except Stan's actualfax matches distracted me, including his amazing and triumphant win over Andy Murray (which promptly made me want to write all the celebratory Stan/Benoit PWP in the world, so expect to see that fic up soon as well, haha). 
> 
> This fic is set in the same universe as [on that you can rely](http://archiveofourown.org/works/760711), and I'll probably get around to combining them into a proper series at some point (most likely when the celebratory sex fic is done), but it should also be able to stand alone. For background info on Stan and Benoit, though, and the beginnings of a shipping manifesto for the two of them, see that fic.

_three questions about relationships that Stan deflects, and one that he answers without being asked._

i. 

At first Stan doesn’t think he hears her properly. 

“Sorry?” he says, giving her an apologetic smile. His English is usually quite decent, but she has an American accent, something musical and broad, and perhaps he misheard.

She smiles back and repeats the question. “What’s the thing you like best about your new boyfriend?”

No, he did hear correctly. Stan widens his eyes, stepping automatically into his media training – when under siege, disarm disarm disarm. He doesn’t have a hilarious rubber eyebrow like some, but he does have a shy smile which gives him good results, and he brings it out. “Boyfriend?”

“Yes,” she says, starting to look puzzled. “What’s the best thing about him?”

There have always been people who look at him and Roger and draw conclusions. Not entirely false conclusions, perhaps, but fundamentally flawed ones; despite all the media training, nobody ever thought to teach Stan ‘how to bamboozle reporters that suspect your secret unrequited love for your doubles partner’. 

But he learned quickly. “Sorry, I do not understand? Ilham and I separate so I can focus on tennis. I do not have time to date anyone, certainly not a boyfriend!” He lets a note of incredulity into his laugh, as if it’s not an _insult_ , but hilarious, and lets out a mental breath as the other journalists in the presser start laughing as well.

It may be rash, a luxury he can’t afford, but he’d rather not flat out deny it. Oh, Stan knows he’s not cut out to be the pioneer, the first top player to own his sexuality in public. He’s too shy, too nervy, his game too easily derailed – and after all, if even players like Rafa Nadal are content to stay in their glass closets, Rafa Nadal the superstar, why should Stan Wawrinka the journeyman risk everything? Perhaps if things were different, and Roger was by his side holding his hand – perhaps if he had a reason to put tennis on the line – but that’s never been on the cards, never.

Still, he’s always tried to avoid, not deny. 

If he had a boyfriend, Stan wonders suddenly, even the word sending a little prickle down his spine, what _would_ be the best thing about him? Would it be his forehand? The way he shook back his hair coming out of the shower? The look in his eyes when he came? Something he did with his mouth? The sound of Stan’s name on his lips?

Stan blinks, clearing his head, pushing away the knowledge that even in his idle daydreams, his imaginary boyfriend only ever has one impossible face.

(Later, it turns out that someone had been playing a prank on the young reporter and given her fake information. He smiles at her in his next presser, just to show that there’s no hard feelings. He tries not to think about what if it had been true, and what if he _was_ blissfully happy with a new boyfriend, because that way dragons lie.)

ii.

Stan jumps with surprise at the voice behind him, and doesn’t register the words. “Sorry?”

He’s not hiding, he’s not; if he was on his way back from the practice courts and happened upon a bit of a fuss, it’s completely natural for him to hang back, out of the way. Why wade into that crowd of fans if he doesn’t have to? He’ll just stand here, around this corner, and wait for the coast to clear.

The problem is, someone else seems to have had the same idea. “They look happy, no?”

The repeated question hangs in the air, as heavy as the companionable hand that lands on his shoulder after a moment. Stan looks back at the scrum ahead of them. 

Roger must have thought this was a back way. He likes the adulation, but he usually avoids the crowds when he’s with Mirka. She doesn’t look like she minds them much this time, though, tucked securely under his arm, pressed up next to his side, almost cuddling-close. Her head’s thrown back, and she’s laughing, as Roger, looking a bit wry, scribbles his name on oversized tennis balls.

“How’s the knee?” Stan asks, then winces. That deflection had been rather sharper than he’d intended. 

Rafa doesn’t seem to mind. He laughs.

Ilham used to be a cuddler. She would snuggle up at night when she thought Stan was asleep, tuck her head into the curve of his arm and wiggle closer, her breath whooshing out in silent contentment, her cold feet pressing up against his leg, her cheek resting on his side as she fell into slumber.

Stan would stare up at the ceiling and keep his breathing even, hating himself for wishing he could be sleeping on the sofa, hating himself for not wanting to be this close to his own girlfriend, then his pregnant bride, then the mother of his child – until finally one day his self-hatred had cracked, and he’d known he couldn’t do this any longer, because whatever he did to himself, he had no right to make Ilham pay for it.

She’d been the first person he’d ever told; that is, if you don’t count recklessly kissing someone when high on victory as telling them, and Stan doesn’t.

“The knee is the knee,” Rafa says, no doubt with one of his philosophical shrugs. “But you…you are not happy.”

Stan doesn’t need a Spaniard psychoanalysing him, even if he _is_ peering at Roger and Mirka from around a corner like a creepy stalker. (God, he’s pathetic.) He turns around to face his interrogator. 

Rafa’s eyes are searching, and very brown, this close up. “You look at them and your face, it…”

Stan cuts him off. “Rafa, I don’t need…” He sighs. “Just ready to play tennis, okay?”

“Okay,” Rafa echoes, but his hand tightens on Stan’s shoulder. “You need to talk, you call me.”

 _Like that’s going to happen_ , but Stan doesn’t say it, because Rafa’s eyes are full of sincerity, and also very brown, and whoa, wait, is this an offer of friendship or something else? Back up. Stan’s a bit dense, this he knows, and he’s never had something like this happen before – if it’s even happening – but now he’s not at all sure about anything. They’re both gay (not that Stan’s told anyone on the tour, and Roger won’t have talked, but Stan’s pretty sure Rafa’s guessed, given the Stan-watching-Roger-around-corners thing), but that doesn’t mean Rafa’s necessarily putting the moves on him. Stan’s probably interpreting this entirely incorrectly. Probably. Rafa _is_ standing very close. Maybe. Possibly.

Dammit, if Rafa would only lean in and kiss him Stan could stop overthinking this and dissecting social cues. He’s a tennis player, he’s trained to hit backhands down the line, he’s not trained for this.

But does he want Rafa to kiss him? That’s the question now, isn’t it.

Rafa grins at him, teeth catching the light. Yes, Stan is now officially looking at his mouth. He is the least suave of anyone on this tour. “We go rescue Roger, yes?”

So they do, bearing the Federers bodily away from the after all not that large crowd in a flurry of laughter and waves. Stan ends up with Mirka; next to them, Rafa’s got an arm around Roger’s shoulders, talking animatedly about something. Roger’s chuckling. Mirka’s looking at him with a soft light in her eyes.

_Yes, Rafa, yes, they look happy._

Stan sighs, and feels something in his brain let go.

(Later, it turns out that Stan had been misreading things, as usual. Rafa never makes a move. Stan wonders - if _he’d_ made one, would Rafa would have reciprocated? He gets himself off at night for a while with thoughts of the strength of Rafa’s arms holding him in place, the curve of Rafa’s famous ass under his hands, the deep brownness of Rafa’s eyes fixed on his own, even though Stan’s still unsure if he’d even want that; only much later, once he’s happy and loved and it’s all a distant memory, does he remember that there were two of them around that corner, two of them watching Roger and Mirka.)

~//~

iii.

Stan doesn’t quite hear the question. After five hours of playing videogames, his ears are still ringing from being abused by overenthusiastic shouts of GOAAAAAL! (Frenchmen take their football seriously. And also make a damn lot of goals.) “Sorry?”

Benoit looks back over his shoulder, from where he’s bent over by the minibar considering its contents. “How’s your love life going these days?” He frowns. “Also, how are you out of chocolate?”

Stan grins. “I had them take it all out. Your sweet tooth is a menace.”

“You can do that?” Benoit’s eyebrows have shot up. “Not that I approve, you are incredibly cruel to me.”

Stan makes a lofty gesture, or as much of one as he can manage while lying on his back in a comfortable bed. He loves many things about Chennai, but this bed may just be his favourite. He’s not entirely sure they haven’t used feathers from angels’ wings to fill the pillows. “I’m a superstar, Ben, what can I say? They’ll do everything for me.”

“Is that so?” Benoit says, sounding entirely unimpressed by Stan’s superstarness. He walks over and pushes Stan’s feet aside so he can sit down. “Tell them to send you up a better forehand while they’re at it.”

Stan grins up at him. “Why, you looking to upgrade?”

With much rolling of eyes, Benoit flops down next to him and steals one of his pillows, closing his eyes in bliss. Angels’ wings, Stan’s just saying. “Piss off. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve avoided the question.”

“What question?” Stan asks, although he knows what question very well.

Benoit pokes him in the side. “How’s your love life going, superstar?”

“I’m back together with Ilham, of course. We’re asking people to respect our privacy,” Stan says, parroting the PR line, slipping on his artificial practised smile. 

Benoit catches his meaning, just as Stan meant him to. “In other words, mind my own business?” 

His love life. Ha. 

Ilham’s – not an angel, that makes her sound like some paragon of womanhood, or like her wings should be in these pillows. She’s a very human person, just like him. But she’s also a wonderful mother, and when she decided that it was best for Alexia if her parents pretended they’d reconciled, if Stan was as present a father as he could be, Stan had been willing to play along.

More than willing. Alexia’s the best thing he’s ever done, written on his heart, and he’ll be forever grateful for Ilham’s generosity in covering for him. He doesn’t think it would have been in her nature to out him, to go to the press with the story of how she was deceived into a relationship with a self-hating gay man, but it would have been easy for her to feel personally rejected and to want nothing more to do with him. Every time she smiles at him and hands him a sleepy toddler to carry, he feels a surge of grateful affection.

But as far as a ‘love life’ goes? With Ilham? That’s so far off the cards it might as well be on Mars. And with anyone else…

He sneaks a sideways look at Benoit, whose eyes are closed, face serene. He wonders what it would be like to be brutally honest. _Ilham and I just pretend to be together for Alexia. I’m gay. And no, I haven’t got a gay love life either. I’m boring, and lonely, and alone._

Would Benoit still want to play FIFA for hours with him, loungeing around shirtless and play-tussling after close shots, or would his eyes go shuttered like Janko’s, who makes faces at Rafa sometimes when his back is turned? Would Benoit still be as physically affectionate with him, with all the countless friendly touches that fall on Stan’s touch-starved mind like water on desert? Or would he go all awkward and distant, still willing to play doubles and anxious to demonstrate his tolerance, his fucking _tolerance_ , but never, never the same again?

Stan’s tried full honesty once before. He didn’t find it pleasant.

“Do you love her?” Benoit asks. His eyes are still shut, his voice light. “I only ask because your emotional state of mind is important to playing doubles at the highest level.”

They’re in the doubles finals in _Chennai_ , a 250 event, not Roland Garros, Stan thinks, suppressing an exasperated sigh. It’s none of Benoit’s business what his love life is, if he’s fucking ten people a night or as ascetic as a monk. (Although, come to think of it, Stan’s not sure how ascetic monks are these days, and if he was fucking ten people a night Benoit might actually have a bit of a point. It wouldn’t leave him much energy for tennis.)

Anyway, it’s not Benoit’s business. 

Still, he’s just played FIFA with Stan for five hours, even if he _did_ thrash him, and he makes Stan laugh, and he flops all over Stan’s sofa and bed and floor, and he leaves his gear bag everywhere, and he’s seemingly completely unaware of such a thing as personal space. It’s a friendship the likes of which Stan hasn’t known in a very long time – uncomplicated, absolute, easy, spilling over with laughter and joy – and their victories on court feel like its natural outgrowth, not the reason for its maintenance.

“We’re staying together for Alexia,” Stan says abruptly, brave enough for half the truth if not the whole. “I’m a bit of a loser in the love department at the moment.”

“Ah,” Benoit says, knowingly, managing to sound terrifically French in just one word.

“Rub it in,” Stan says, and somehow Benoit’s still managing to make him laugh, even now, “You have a different beautiful girlfriend every two months. Who’s it now – Alex, right? Or is it still Morgane? Or are we on to Natalia, Sofia, Maria…”

Benoit’s outraged squawk cuts him off, which is a good thing because Stan’s running out of vaguely-Russian-supermodelish sounding girls’ names off the top of his head, and then Benoit’s rolled over and tackled him, and they’re wrestling on the top of the bed, and Stan’s laughing helplessly, hopelessly, when he’s not getting Benoit’s elbow in the ribs.

One of the pillows bursts when he hits Benoit with it, and Stan’s going to have some explaining to do later to the longsuffering hotel people, but for now he can’t bring himself to care.

(Later, it turns out that it was this conversation that first somehow gave Benoit hope that he might have a chance of winning Stan’s heart. Stan doesn’t see quite how, but Ben assures him that he’s not the best at deflecting awkward questions, and that his face is an open book to talented young men like himself; Stan would argue, but Benoit’s not lying about his talent in one direction at least, and Stan suddenly hasn’t the brainpower to form words, let alone arguments.)

~//~

i.

Lost in his thoughts, Stan is caught entirely off guard by a vicious dig in his ribs by an unexpectedly bony finger. 

“Ow?” he says, with considered woefulness.

The bed’s big enough for both of them, but Benoit doesn’t seem to have ever heard of sides. When they settled down to watch a film twenty minutes ago, Benoit clambered straight over to Stan’s side of the bed and insinuated himself under Stan’s arm, pressed up against him, warmth to warmth. If Stan hadn’t recently finished having his brains exploded out of his head, he might have had a predictable reaction to Benoit’s closeness, so new and so heady; as it was, he quirked an eyebrow, but Benoit was busy chattering about Francois Ozon and didn’t notice.

Then Stan had started thinking…

Back in the present, it seems that Benoit has finally noticed. “What just happened in the film?” he repeats, with an awe-inspiring glare.

Stan darts a glance at the television, but Benoit’s been smart and paused it, and Stan hasn’t a clue. “Um…”

“You weren’t watching!” Benoit says indignantly. “I told you this is one of my favourite films, right? And you don’t even bother to watch? I can’t believe you!”

Stan notices that despite his indignation, Benoit hasn’t pulled away. He’s still just as beautifully close, still just as tantalisingly warm. His head is tipped back on the curve of Stan’s bicep, his arm trailing across Stan’s stomach. His toes feel funny on Stan’s ankle.

“I was watching,” Stan says, softly – and Benoit must hear something in his voice, because Benoit’s tongue darts out to run across his bottom lip, and hello, Stan’s not developed an immunity to that yet. “I just wasn’t watching the film.”

He’s been alone a long time. It takes some doing to be alone on an ATP tour that thrives on bustle, on busyness, on drama and loudness and glory. Most players go around surrounded by a close-knit team hanging on their every move; most players have friends and confidantes, lovers and mates, a support team in every sense of the word. 

At the end of the day, Stan’s always just had Stan – and maybe that’s self-pitying, maybe that’s him being gloomy and introspective and thinking too much, as Ilham always used to say he did, but doesn’t even that prove his point just a little bit? He used to have Roger, once upon a time, but he managed to screw that up in fine fashion, and since then he’s been just Stan, just Stan, just alone.

No longer.

Benoit swallows. “Tired from your long day?” His voice wobbles, and Stan is abruptly not interested in the film anymore, not that he ever really was.

A support team is friends and confidantes, lovers and mates? Stan will take them all and raise them one Benoit Paire.

“No,” he says, tightening his arm around the man beside him, before rolling on his side and leaning down. “Not tired at all.”

Benoit’s eyes are fixed on Stan’s lips, his breath hitching. Stan smiles, staying just out of reach.

“Oh god,” Benoit mutters, his breath ghosting across Stan’s grin, raising the prickles on the back of Stan’s neck. “Stop teasing.”

But Stan loves this part. ( _What’s the thing you like best about your new boyfriend?_ ) This, this is Stan’s favourite part of being with Benoit, he thinks, first on a very long list – the moment before they come together, the exhalation before the kiss, the raw intimacy of seeing the freckles on the end of his lover’s nose, the hot need in his lover’s eyes. The only thing that he can think to liken it to is the moment before you serve for a match: standing on the baseline, staring down your opponent, hearing the crowd’s excited buzz, feeling the familiar weight of the ball in one hand and the grip of your racquet in the other. 

The hush in the moment before kissing Benoit, however, is much less nervewracking than the hush before you serve for a match. (Even if his heart is beating just as quickly.)

Partly that’s because Benoit is impatient and never lets it drag on for long. “Fuck you,” he says now, rolling his eyes, and surges up to meet Stan’s lips. His mouth is hot and demanding, and Stan wants to laugh with the joy of it, but doesn’t have the breath. 

“If you like,” he says, low and ragged, when Benoit breaks away to gasp for air.

Benoit swears again, a long creative string of expletives, as he plants a hand on the mattress and flips them. They’re a tangle of limbs and bedding, and then Stan’s armful of boyfriend resolves into Benoit looming over him, all intent and purpose, his kiss this time full of teeth and promises. 

_They look happy, no?_ Happiness is not something Stan has ever had the chance to get too familiar with, but he thinks this must be what it feels like. Oh, success on the tennis court can be one part of it – he’s having a great run here in Monte Carlo, and he has the sneaking suspicion that when he faces Andy tomorrow he won’t do half badly – but far more insistent in his mind at present is the pure unadulterated joy of being loved, and loving in return.

It’s too soon, far too soon, to say it out loud, five days after that conversation in a Casablanca hotel room that ended up with Benoit kissing him for the very first time. Not even a week! Sometimes Stan feels like it’s been forever, and sometimes like it’s been a moment. Perhaps that’s because this thing with Benoit – this relationship – is at once brand new and a year old. He may not have been having sex with Benoit all this time, but that’s not always the only thing that matters. Benoit’s been the one making him laugh, keeping him company, and staying by his side for far longer than they’ve been rolling around in these sheets.

And perhaps Stan was too melodramatic, to be thinking that he’s not had a chance to get too familiar with happiness in the past. He’s had an amazing career, and he has a wonderful daughter, and he has lots of friends. He gets to travel the world and make a career out of something he loves, and he won an Olympic Games. Not too shabby, that. People all over the world love him, and he’s fit and healthy. Yes, he has to say that he’s been happy in the past.

Just never as happy as this.

“I’m not fucking you,” Benoit says, quite seriously, the level tone of his voice making Stan shiver. “You’ve got a match tomorrow. You think I want to watch Murray thrash you because you can’t move freely?”

“You think you could fuck me that hard?” Stan asks. His rein on his control is already coming undone at the feeling of Benoit’s hands tight around his wrists, pinning them to the bed. He bucks his hips up, watching Benoit’s eyes unfocus for a moment, hearing the rasp of Benoit’s breath as it catches in his throat.

Benoit leans down, resting his forehead against Stan’s. “I know I could.”

“Promises, promises,” Stan says, hooking a leg around Benoit’s back, pulling him yet closer, achingly close. They both suck in a breath; Stan resists the urge to arch up again, seeking more of that magnificent friction.

“Stanley,” Benoit says.

Stan loves it when Benoit calls him Stanley. A lot of people do now, it’s catching on, but there’s just something about the way Benoit says it…it’s like a caress, almost, Stan thinks suddenly, a light little caress, like Benoit reaching down to trail his fingers across the back of Stan’s neck in the mornings when he gets up to go take a piss and brush his teeth.

He used to do that before, too, Stan remembers, just while Stan was doing normal things like cooking or stretching or watching television, not while Stan was half-asleep, naked under the sheets.

“Stanley,” Benoit says again, and draws back enough so that Stan will know that Benoit wants his full attention. “When I fuck you for the first time, I don’t want to have to be careful.”

His gaze is hot, and Stan shivers under it. “Understood,” he says, breathless, and frees one of his wrists with a quick movement in order to pull Benoit back down into another kiss.

 _How’s your love life going these days?_ Stan’s love life is perfect. Perfect in every way, because he has Benoit in his arms and in his bed and against his lips.

A reporter told him after his match today that if he beats Andy tomorrow Roger will move back to being #2 in the world. Two years ago Stan would have bitten back what he wanted to say – “Yeah? Why does everything I ever do have to be about Roger?” – and given her a bland PR response, before going back to his room and letting it all subtly ruin his evening. One year ago Stan would have bitten back what he wanted to say – “Oh god, Roger again” – and laughed it off with some comment about Roger being good enough to manage his ranking on his own, before going back to his room and calling Benoit and telling him all about it (Benoit would have commiserated; Stan knows he had posters of Roger in his bedroom as a kid, but somehow he seems to have become less of a Roger fan over the time Stan’s known him. Stan never used to be able to figure out why, but he thinks he might have an idea now.)

Today, Stan just blinked at her for a long moment. 

It’s not that he’s forgotten who Roger is, of course not. They’ll forever be linked, and Rog is, after all, one of his best friends, if a distant one. 

It’s just that Stan has – finally, his subconscious screams – moved on. He’s playing his best tennis in years, he’s helming the Davis Cup team on his own, he has his own daughter to raise and love, he’s a respected veteran member of the tour in his own right, and his imaginary boyfriend no longer inexorably takes on certain well-known lines. His imaginary boyfriend is real, and more than he could have ever dreamed.

“I’m happy for him,” Stan told the reporter, and meant it. “He deserves it.”

And then he put it clear out of his head, because once his press was complete and all his physio work done, Benoit was waiting back here in this room, and that’s all that mattered.

Back here in the now, Stan realises that he’s drifted off into his thoughts, even though that seems almost impossible when kissing Benoit. “Sorry,” he apologises, reaching up to pull Benoit back in again.

Benoit doesn’t let himself be pulled this time. He’s all golden shirtless perfection against the light, and Stan’s having trouble focusing on anything except looking and touching and wanting to taste, but he’s not completely oblivious even now, and he sees the question in Benoit’s eyes.

He’s not sure exactly what that question is, though. Is it, “why do you always think too much?” (Answer: I don’t know. I just do.) Is it, “why can’t you just focus on having sex when we’re in bed together, you damn idiot?” (Answer: Fuck, I don’t know, I’ll try harder.) Is it, “do you know just how lucky you are to have me?” (Answer: Yes. Yes, I do.)

Or is it the question Stan would be asking, if their situations were flipped, because Stan has always been insecure and wary: “Are you thinking of Roger when you’re with me?”

To which the answer is a simple _No_.

Roger is Roger, and Benoit is Benoit, and Stan wouldn’t trade one Benoit for a hundred Rogers.

He doesn’t know how to say that, though, and it’s probably not smart to try; the question could be any one of the others, or even “did we lock the door?” or “did you hear my stomach rumbling?”

So instead he reaches his hand up again. Not to draw Benoit down this time, but to run his fingers gently down the side of Benoit’s face, watching as his eyes fall half-shut and his head tilts imperceptibly into the caress.

“Ben,” he says, helplessly. “ _Ben._ ”

Benoit’s smile is slow this time, but beautiful, and Stan wonders if Benoit hears what he means, everything caught up in one syllable, even as the raw need still rocks suspended between them. 

“Stanley,” Benoit whispers.

And then the moment passes, because they may be two soppy idiots in love with each other even if they’re not quite saying it yet, but they’re also two young and horny soppy idiots, and certain bits of Stan’s anatomy are in quite close proximity with certain interesting bits of Benoit’s anatomy, and that’s a situation that can only be ignored for so long.

Stan moves first, hooking his other leg around Benoit’s waist, putting himself in a completely vulnerable position but lining their cocks up quite nicely, and watches with fascination as Benoit goes a lovely red colour. 

“ _Stan_.” Benoit sounds a bit different than he did a moment ago, voice rough with affectionate exasperation, and then he dips his head and _nips_ at Stan’s jawline. Stan laughs, and then stops laughing as his stomach flips.

Benoit says, conversationally, “So, I’m not going to fuck you until after the tournament, and anyway I haven’t got lube yet so nobody’s getting fucked tonight, but how about I suck you until you beg me in all the languages you know to let you come?”

Just Stan’s luck to fall in love with a chatterbox, and a dirty-mouthed chatterbox at that. 

“Sound like a plan?” Benoit says, and his eyes are alight with mischief and horniness and something more, and Stan could drown in them, except he kind of wants to stay alive and try being blissfully happy for a while. He thinks it might agree with him.

“Yes,” he says, and grinds up again, shameless and joyful, and Benoit shudders against him, and Stan laughs at all the fantasticness in the world, short and breathless and complete. “ _Yes_.”

(Later, he falls asleep in Benoit’s arms, and all the questions have faded away, leaving only answers.)


End file.
